On 21 January 2025, the traditional 7th Grade Ballad Festival took place in the assembly hall of the Nelson Mandela School. This festival, organized by the German department, is about selecting a ballad and performing it on stage in a compelling way. The four 7th grade German classes chose the ballads ‘Der Erlkönig’, ‘John Maynard’, ‘Die Goldgräber’ and ‘Der Zauberlehrling’, analysed their form and content and developed creative ideas for their stage presentation. As all four performances were very impressive, the jury of 8th grade students had a difficult time awarding the trophies (‘Balladis’) in the categories ‘Language’, ‘Performance’, ‘Costume/Props’ and ‘Sound/Effects’. In the end, we had a lot of fun at the Ballad Festival and we will certainly remember it for a long time

Roman (Abi Q2), Ben (Abi Q2), Jonas (11c) and Tarish (11b) represented our school at JTFO table tennis. In the competition group of the oldest pupils, they achieved an outstanding 2nd place in the schools' tournament and played table tennis at a high level. Congratulations on this great success!

After the intra-school competitions, our school took part in the ‘Jugend debattiert’ regional competition at the Sophie-Scholl-Schule for the first time on 28 January 2025, in which four other secondary schools also took part. Henriette (9a), Lin (9b) and Ryan (10d) debated with great commitment in age group 1 (8th-10th school year), but unfortunately did not reach the final due to the strong competition. The topics of the debates were ‘Should smoking be banned in public?’ and ‘Should a licence plate requirement be introduced for bicycles?’ Kilian (9a), Eliot (9c), Bendix and Hugo (both Q2) acted again as competent judges - as they did in the intra-school competitions. Rasmus (9c), Lynn (10a) and Fanny (Q2) did not take part, but were in the audience cheering on the debaters from our school.

We are already looking forward to next year's competition, for which all participants will be more experienced!

The advanced textiles course for Year 9 students travelled to Morawa, Poland, from 21 January to 25 February to create artistic textile designs with their Polish peers. The 14 students were supervised by Florentine Baumann and handicrafts assistant Birgit M'Pandzou. At the neoclassical Morawa manor house, a popular venue for German-Polish youth encounters, the group of 31 students were able to unleash their creativity crocheting, embroidering and weaving. In addition to the creative project work at the manor house, the group visited a weaving museum for linen production in Kamienna Gora and took part in a crochet workshop with a crochet influencer. The students also met 97-year-old Melita Sallai, who presented her life story in a documentary film. Afterwards, the students were able to ask questions. Melita spent her childhood in the manor house that belonged to her family of nine before the Second World War. At the end of the exciting week, during which the participants learned and practised their manual skills, made friends and explored German-Polish history, they presented their work in a small exhibition. The project is documented in this Padlet: 

https://padlet.com/showcase1/textile-design-trip-to-morawa-2025-n6mrrmptit2yzj1e

A big congratulations, from left to Franek, Luis, Bhuvi, Tonio and Robin! 16 school teams took part in the tournament on 16.01.25.

On 10 January 2025, the grand ‘Jugend debattiert’ final of the winners of the 9th and 10th grade year finals took place in the assembly hall. All of the Year 9 and 10 students were in the audience and watched the debates with excitement.

Miah and Jayson from year 9 and Alexander and Hana from year 10 impressed in the B-level competition with an eloquent debate on the question: ‘Should there be a PE lesson every school day?’

The C-level students engaged in an exciting and very balanced debate on the question: ‘Should the Nelson Mandela School allow its students to create their own area on the school website (without the control of the school management)?’ Henriette and Lin from year 9 and Ryan and Mathilda B. from year 10 competed against each other.

After lengthy deliberation, the jury, consisting of Fanny, Christopher, Leander and Bendix Thum (all Q2), chose Henriette and Alexander as the winners.

The winners of the C-level debate will take part in the regional ‘Jugend debattiert’ competition at Sophie-Scholl-Schule on 28 January 2025. We wish them good luck!

Our students have arrived! We wish them lots of fun and  wonderful experiences!

 © SHF, Foto: Frank Sperling

On December 3 and 4, 2014, this year's principals' conference of the German UNESCO project schools took place at the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin. Every two years, activities from the network are presented at the lunch-to-lunch event and the opportunity is given to exchange ideas.

On the afternoon of December 3, the City Research project and impressions of this year's Berlin UNESCO student seminar on the topic of world heritage were presented. Our student Hugo Vorländer (Q2) presented his film project and a short film about the student seminar was also shown to the plenary. Once again, I would like to thank Hugo for his extra commitment in presenting his project in this context!

Franziska Wandtke (Landeskoordination der Berliner UNESCO-Projektschulen)

From 25.11. to 29.11.2024, for the first time since Corona, a meeting seminar between 24 pupils from the Berlin UNESCO project schools and pupils from Ukraine took place in Berlin. For one school week, the focus was on personal exchange and intercultural learning. The group dealt with the question of how to bring the topic of World Heritage education to life in everyday school life and visited the Museum Island, the palaces in Potsdam and the Hufeisensiedlung in Berlin-Britz (Siedlung der Moderne). The pupils documented their visits with personal collages and short films in order to make the topic more tangible for young people.

At the end of the seminar week, there was a personal exchange about the experiences with the State Secretary Christina Henke, who visited the Nelson Mandela School, looked at the results of the work and entered into a personal dialog with the group.

Franziska Wandtke (Landeskoordinatorin der Berliner UNESCO-Projektschulen)

On 28.11.2024 the opening ceremony of the exhibition History(s) of Tanzania took place. The project is part of the exhibition of the Humboldt Forum Foundation in the Berlin Palace, the Ethnological Museum and Central Archive, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin- Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz and the National Museum of Tanzania. 

As part of this project, two groups of students - one in Berlin, one in Dar es Salam - set out to investigate the city and explore traces of colonialism in Berlin that are recognizable today. From January to August 2024, various pupils from three Berlin UNESCO project schools took part in this project and, under the guidance of a facilitator, they researched topics, consulted with experts, developed storyboards and then made their own short films.

Hugo Vorländer from the qualification phase focused on the biography of Marin Dibube and created an extraordinary short film about his life. This film will be shown in the current exhibition. Congratulations to Hugo on his participation in this interesting project!

Franziska Wandtke (Landeskoordination der Berliner UNESCO-Projektschulen)

In November the IB 12 biology class as well as IB 13 biology students, accompanied by their teachers, Dr. Ahke and Dr. Dr. Premkumar, received a deep insight into a modern molecular biology lab at Max Delbrück Centre campus in Berlin Buch.

Nestled next to professional research labs, the Gläserne Labor offers various lab work shops on latest fields of research. Scientists or PhDs allow a realistic glimpse into their research topics. Our classes practiced new skills as they have been introduced to the long process of PCR analysis of their own cheek cells and also did genealogical tree analysis. A PCR analysis usually includes a gel electrophoresis analysis, however, nowadays capillary electrophoresis is the lab standard used e.g. to detect paternity, analyze blood samples from crime scenes or for medical and hygiene investigations. (A.Ahke)

On 12 December 2024, the year 11 final of the Jugend debattiert competition took place in the assembly hall as part of the subject German. The finalists tackled the question: ‘Should the school have its own social media presence?’

They delivered an exciting and content-rich debate in front of the entire Year 11 class. The good atmosphere and the high standard of the arguments made the final a special event. The very competent jury (Shiraz, Hugo and Bendix from Year 12) ultimately declared Amon (11a) the winner ahead of Nouriel (11b). Congratulations!